


If My Heart Breaks it's Gonna Hurt so Bad

by NiniAtTheYAC



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Anorexia, Anxiety, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gina comforting Nini, Mental Health Issues, this got dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiniAtTheYAC/pseuds/NiniAtTheYAC
Summary: TW: Mental health, anxiety, eating disorder, anxious/disordered thoughtsThis scene is kind of parallel to cannon. After Thanksgiving Gina is still around for a few more practices and is there for Nini when she needs someone more than ever.Projecting my own eating disorders and mental health problems onto fictional characters? Me? Never! No, but seriously I think that Nini's character in the show has a lot of self-esteem issues and perfectionist tendencies that could lead to her to these kinds of issues and I just wanted to explore that. This isn't my best writing but it was important for me to put it out for people to see. If you are or have struggled with eating disorders or mental health please read at your own discretion.
Relationships: Gina Porter/Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	If My Heart Breaks it's Gonna Hurt so Bad

Her hands felt like ice. Her whole body shook, both cold and weak. Her heart palpitated. Her mind spun. Her head felt clouded. She needed to get it together and get to rehearsal. She reached out to grip the wall, steady herself for a moment. She could not pass out. She could not pass out. She could not pass out, because then they might start to see, they might start asking questions, and she might lose everything. She rested her forehead against the wall and took slow breaths. 

“Nini?” A voice called out from the doorway to the room. “Nini, are you okay?” 

‘Ugh, anyone but you,’ she thought to herself as her eyes welled up with tears. Nini turned away and tried to sound normal. “I’m fine, just needed a minute.” She cursed herself for the way her voice shook, she was supposed to be an actor, she should be at least halfway decent at lying. 

“No,” they came closer to her. “You’re not fine. I- Nini, you’ve been different lately. We’ve all noticed. But no one could really put their finger on it, and then it occurred to me today when you left just as we were sitting down to take a break before practice that I can’t remember the last time you stayed for break. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I saw you eat anything.” Nini shook her head as they spoke, willing them to stop. Just stop! “Nini, how long have you been struggling with anorexia?”

Nini let out a strangled sob, as Gina reached out to her. 

How did she get here? How could she have let this happen? Well, it was just the culmination of one thing after another that brought her to this. It all started in summer, with Ricky. It felt so dumb to admit to herself that all of this pain and struggling began over a boy, but it’s just the truth. She -loved- him. She loved Ricky so much that it made her eyes misty when she thought about it even back when they were together and everything was beautiful. She loved him, and he didn’t want her, or he did but he couldn’t find the words and she couldn’t read his mind and so she left for theater camp with her heart in shreds.

Then she met EJ who, if she was being totally honest, she was pretty sure only liked her because she was his inferior. She was a year younger, he was the lead and she barely made the cast, she was shy, and awkward, and anxious while he was popular, confident, and perfect. At camp, she had told herself to just give herself over to a mild infatuation with him so that she could stop crying herself to sleep over Ricky. Then, by some crazy twist of fate he picked her, so what could she do but be his? 

But for every reason she could find to hate EJ now, he did do one thing for her; he taught her that not every boy could be Ricky Bowen. Not every boy would respect her, understand her, look after her, and protect her. EJ said that he loved her, and while Ricky couldn’t say it, he showed her that he loved her, while EJ just wanted to control her. 

But the nail in the coffin was actually the person embracing her now, Gina. Just when Nini was starting to get a handle on herself. She was getting over the insecurity that EJ had caused in her by sabotaging a show to get her the lead. Moving past her anxiety after having her privacy violated by someone who claimed to care about her. The wounds left by Ricky’s abandonment were beginning to heal. Homecoming with Kourtney had put her on a better and healthier path. And then Gina happened. 

She saw Ricky at school and thought about the moment they had shared she felt like maybe there was still a place for them and a way for them. She let herself daydream about them and it made her happy and that was enough, but then she saw him flirting with Gina. The looks he gave her, the way he seemed magnetized to her, the way that they joked with each other. 

And, Nini couldn’t even say why, but something about having this girl, the girl who had been so mean to her, captivate Ricky’s attention… it just broke her. Rationally, Nini knew that wasn’t Gina’s fault, but whenever she saw Gina and Ricky laughing together, all Nini could hear was Gina, telling her that she hadn’t stolen her phone but that she’d steal the show. When Nini caught them watching each other from across the room, she thought of the times when Gina had gone out of her way to make her look bad. Nini had been made to look like an unorganized and flighty girl with absolutely no dancing ability. And Gina looked like a goddess. She heard Ricky compliment Gina; he told her that she looked great, or sounded great, or was an amazing dancer. And Nini was haunted by the day when she’d overheard Gina talking with the costume designer about her being a bland actress. It was all so irrational, but something inside of her just… broke. 

In her self hate, she needed some way to understand how Ricky could fall for a girl that had been so cruel. So, Nini did what she always did when she had to figure something out, she made a list. 

A list of everything that Gina was and Nini was not: Confident, funny, a long and lean crazy talented dancer, -- the list sort of fell apart after that, instead of being about differentiating herself from Gina her list just became a way for her to tear herself down -- a better singer, probably a better friend, more fun, less complicated, prettier.

It was as if Nini’s brain had short-circuited as she created her list. She got stuck on the idea that Gina had everything because she was confident and Gina must be confident because she’s (objectively) got a perfect body. Nini knew it made no sense, but she needed to be able to make something right in this horrible mess, and the only thing she had even a little bit of control over was her own body. So, she had to fix it. 

It all went downhill pretty fast after that. Anytime she ate, she made herself think about every flaw that she had, inside and out. When she had a craving Nini thought about the whisper’s she’d heard at the beginning of the year -- ‘how does a tree end up dating a senior?’ -- and her stomach would turn with hurt and anxiety and suddenly she wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Nini?” Gina finally snapped her out of her daze after who knows how long. 

Nini pulled away from her, “We need to get to practice.” She said weakly. Gina stared at her while she used her sleeve as a tissue. Gina shook her head softly, “No, Nini, you need to sit down and eat and talk.”

“I can’t do this with you, Gina,” Nini said, giving her a pleading look. 

“Well, I’m not about to let you not talk about it. Now, when did this start? And why?” Nini sighed and moved to sit down in front of the mirror. She met Gina’s eye in the reflection.

“About a month ago and it was because of a lot of things. Things I don’t particularly want to talk about.”

Gina looked torn like she could sense that she might have some responsibility in Nini’s current state, and as much as she didn’t want to know it she needed to be sure. “Nini, Ricky and I aren’t together. We’re just friends.”

Nini let out a humorless laugh, “Yeah, he and I have been ‘just friends’ before too.” Her eyes grew misty, “But this isn’t totally about Ricky, I mean… an embarrassing amount of it is about Ricky. I just- I was already hurting and then I saw the way he was looking at you and-” Nini couldn’t speak for a moment while she fought tears. “And, it was a look in his eye that used to be reserved for me, and I got so upset and jealous and obviously I couldn’t talk to him about it and Kourt said I needed to move on, but I couldn’t. I just thought that I needed to be more like you, so I needed to be thinner and better and I just needed to fix myself and then maybe I’d stop feeling so broken and empty and maybe he’d start looking at me like that again. I know it’s stupid. It makes no sense, but I just-” She couldn’t speak anymore, cut off by her own sobs. 

Nini was a mess, she let her knees give out and slid her back down the wall to curl up on the floor. Gina had never heard anyone talk like this. It honestly kind of scared her to hear Nini talk so horribly about herself. She suddenly regretted all of the vindication that she’d felt whenever she’d caught Nini watching her and Ricky. “Ricky still cares about you a lot, and I’m sure if you’d tried to explain Kourtney could have helped you get over him.”

Nini shook her head hard, “No! No, I’ve tried but I get it now! I just have to starve him out of me. It’s the only way I’ll ever move on. There’s something wrong with me. What is wrong with me?”

Gina didn’t really know what to say to her, she crouched down to get closer to her. “There’s no right way to be heartbroken. There are wrong ways, but I don’t think there’s a right way.” 

“I just always seem to do and say the wrong things, and on Thanksgiving, what he said. The way he looked at me. I never thought I’d see that look in his eyes.” Nini’s headache was getting worse from crying and she tried to stop.

“Well, I know for a fact that he regrets that. He told me he owes you an apology, that he didn’t mean any of it.” Gina tried to comfort her with the complete and honest truth.

“There was a time when I was the person he went to. To confide anything to. I miss him so much it’s like a part of me was torn out.” Gina’s heart hurt for Nini, she was beginning to realize how much bigger Nini’s feelings for Ricky were than she'd ever given her credit for. 

“Gina?” Nini said looking up at her, Gina met her eyes. “Thank you for being here.” Nini lunged forward to capture the other girl in a tight and desperate hug, and Gina felt an odd sense of gratitude that she was there too. She never thought she’d see the day that she comforted the girl who stole her lead, but Gina was beginning to understand that, obviously, Nini was so much more than that.

**Author's Note:**

> I love developing Nini and Gina's friendship, I hope the show continues to do right by them. Let me know if you want more of Nini with mental health issues cause I've definitely got a lot more thoughts about it. Please, love yourself, be kind to yourself, and take care of yourself. You are loved and you are worthy of compassion.


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